The federal government shut down at midnight after lawmakers in Washington failed to strike a deal to keep the lights on, ending weeks of tense negotiations with no breakthrough in sight.
The impasse centers on improved Obamacare subsidies. Democrats have been refusing to back a Republican bill that they say will make it more difficult for Americans to afford healthcare.
Essential services, operations considered critical to protect lives and property, will remain in place. The Department of Education, for example, said it will furlough most of its staffers (as many as 750,000 civilian federal workers ), while the majority of Department of Homeland Security personnel are expected to keep working. The U.S. Transportation Department announced that more than 11,000 employees at the Federal Aviation Administration would be furloughed if government funding lapses. A 25% drop in FAA staff would undoubtedly lead to major flight delays.
The White House budget office has already forewarned agencies to brace for sweeping workforce reductions.
“We’re doing well as a country, so the last thing we want to do is shut it down, but a lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Trump went on to suggest that he could use the shutdown to do other ways and “do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for [the Democrats.”
An earlier attempt by Senate Republicans to pass a stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), collapsed after Democrats objected to being excluded from the negotiations. That measure, which passed the House on Sept. 19 largely along party lines, would have extended current funding levels into Nov. 21, giving lawmakers more time to set fiscal year 2026 priorities.
As the shutdown took hold, Democratic leaders placed responsibility squarely on the shoulders of former President Donald Trump and his party. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) blasted Trump’s conduct as funding expired.
“After months of making life harder and more expensive, Donald Trump and Republicans have now shut down the federal government because they do not want to protect the healthcare of the American people,” the two wrote in a joint statement late Tuesday.
The New York Democrats added: “Democrats remain ready to find a bipartisan path forward to reopen the government in a way that lowers costs and addresses the Republican healthcare crisis. But we need a credible partner.”
The two Democratic leaders said their Monday meeting with Trump did little to resolve the standoff and that his focus has shifted toward AI-assisted social media posts targeting them.
“Over the last few days, President Trump’s behavior has become more erratic and unhinged. Instead of negotiating a bipartisan agreement in good faith, he is obsessively posting crazed deepfake videos,” Schumer and Jeffries wrote. They added, “The country is in desperate need of an intervention to get out of another Trump shutdown.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris took to X, formerly Twitter, to blame the GOP for the shutdown.
“President Trump and Congressional Republicans just shut down the government because they refused to stop your health care costs from rising. Let me be clear: Republicans are in charge of the White House, House, and Senate. This is their shutdown,” she wrote.
The Senate is expected to vote again on the same bill on Wednesday (Oct.1), with additional votes possible through the weekend.
